Thursday, December 8th
One should never underestimate, when living in a world so woeful, the therapeutic benefits, however fleeting, of dumb fun.
Shantel, “Disko Partizani,” 2007
music clip of the day
jazz/blues/rock/classical/gospel/more
Category: hard-to-peg
2016
Wednesday, December 7th
Sometimes I want to hear something that will quicken my pulse; sometimes I want something that will slow it—like this, for instance, which I heard the other night in Chicago, played by the group for whom it was written (a.pe.ri.od.ic). One sound . . . another . . . another . . .
Jürg Frey (1953-), Fragile Balance (2014), excerpt; Ensemble Grizzana (Jürg Frey, clarinet; Mira Benjamin, violin; Richard Craig, flute; Emma Richards, viola; Philip Thomas, piano; Seth Woods, cello); 2015
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lagniappe
reading table
Winter seclusion—
sitting propped against
the same worn post—Matsuo Basho (1644-1694), translated from Japanese by Sam Hamill (The Sound of Water: Haiku by Basho, Buson, Issa, and Other Poets)
2016
Saturday, December 3rd
tonight in Chicago
She’ll be playing at Constellation (where I’ll be listening).
Okkyung Lee (cello), live, Netherlands (Nijmegen), 2015
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lagniappe
reading table
On the Anniversary of the Death of Matsuo Basho
Winter rain on moss
soundlessly recalls those
happy bygone days—Yosa Buson (1716-1784), translated from Japanese by Sam Hamill (The Sound of Water: Haiku by Basho, Buson, Issa, and Other Poets)
2016
Saturday, November 26th
sounds of Christchurch*
Roy Montgomery, “Five Bears,” 2016
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lagniappe
reading table
The way “The Tennessee Waltz”
is about having heard“The Tennessee Waltz”
before:an almost floral
nostalgia,is what we call
beautiful.—Rae Armantrout (1947-), “Overhearing,” fragment (Veil: New and Selected Poems)
*****
the beat goes on
2,500 posts—and counting.
*New Zealand.
2016
Friday, November 25th
sounds of Kinshasa*
Baloji with Konono No. 1, “Karibu Ya Bintu,” 2011
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lagniappe
reading table
One needs to keep a clear head when facing pirates in the Amazon.
—Hubert Kinski, 43-year-old Polish explorer, quoted in “‘There’s No Law on the Amazon’: River Pirates Terrorize Ships by Night,” New York Times, 11/18/16
*****
*Democratic Republic of Congo.
2016
Wednesday, November 23rd
sounds of Glasgow
Richard Youngs, “Back from a World Changing,” 2016
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lagniappe
art beat: other day, Art Institute of Chicago
Sally Mann (1951-), Deep South, 1998
2016
Tuesday, November 22nd
sounds of Chicago
Here’s one of my favorite drummers, leading his own band, playing his own compositions.
Michael Zerang & The Blue Lights, live, Germany (Dortmund), 2015*
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lagniappe
art beat: other day, Art Institute of Chicago
Joseph Cornell (1903-1972), Untitled (Hôtel de la Duchesse-Anne), 1957
*****
*MZ, drums, compositions; Dave Rempis, saxophones; Emil Strandberg, trumpet; John Dikeman, saxophones; Kent Kessler, bass.
2016
Saturday, November 19th
passings
Mose Allison, singer, songwriter, piano player, November 11, 1927-November 15, 2016
Talking, singing, playing (Mississippi Blues Commission, 2015)
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Pete Townsend, Georgie Fame, Elvis Costello talking about “Parchman Farm”
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“Parchman Farm” (M. Allison), 1957
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NEA Jazz Masters Tribute, 2013
2016
Saturday, November 12th
passings
Leonard Cohen, songwriter, singer, poet, novelist, Zen Buddhist monk
September 21, 1934-November 7, 2016
With Sonny Rollins (tenor saxophone), “Who By Fire,” 1989
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“Closing Time,” 1992
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“Everybody Knows,” 2014
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“You Want It Darker,” 2016
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lagniappe
random sights
yesterday, Oak Park, Ill.
2016
Tuesday, November 8th
like nobody else
Bob Dorough (1923-), “Devil May Care” (B. Dorough), live (studio performance), Newark, N.J., 2015
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lagniappe
random sights
yesterday, Oak Park, Ill.
*****
baseball: Chicago Cubs
Whether staring and suffering, or grinning and hugging and high-fiving, fans become generic in every World Series. But I remember Cubs fans differently from my sporadic visits to the sunlit Confines in those lean years. They loved their Cubs and yearned for better times, but cheered without irony for every good or great play by the visiting team. It was the game they loved above all.
We will see these youthful champions in the post-season for years to come, I believe. Their infield has a combined age of ninety-six—my own age, as it happens—as good a young bunch as I can recall. Bryant, the third baseman and coming National League M.V.P., goes six feet five and bats from a spread-legged crouch that expands magically into a sudden tall tree with the skyward bat at its top. He’s also swift. That sprint of his around the bases from first reminded you of a clip from the Olympics. The shortstop, Addison Russell, who is twenty-two, batted in six runs in Game 6. Báez, at second, patrols his environs with a feline muscularity. Twenty-seven-year-old Anthony Rizzo, the first baseman, bats left, and may prove to be the best of the quartet—with any luck, a future Hall of Famer whose best years await us.
—Roger Angell, New Yorker, 11/3/16
music clip of the day 